


Only I Know

by Jen425



Series: Mienai Story [3]
Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Zi-O, Tokusatsu
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Secrets, Spies, angst & fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26491837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: Keito is Tsukuyomi’s age, and his brother, Shu, is likely a year or two older than Woz himself. They’re the only others around the same age at the camp, however, so it was probably inevitable that they became close.Tsukuyomi is quicker to warm up to the others, but Shu is friendly, and Keito is…
Series: Mienai Story [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895500
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Only I Know

**Author's Note:**

> And we officially begins the Geiz part of the time travel trio’s backstory!

Keito is Tsukuyomi’s age, and his brother, Shu, is likely a year or two older than Woz himself. They’re the only others around the same age at the camp, however, so it was probably inevitable that they became close.

Tsukuyomi is quicker to warm up to the others, but Shu is friendly, and Keito is… well, he clings to his brother a lot, but he’s fun to fight.

Maybe it’s mean, to take his frustrations out on Keito, but Keito fires right back, and Shu always has a way of stepping in when it gets to much.

Because Woz’s new role alongside Tsukuyomi, helping set up front line camps, may have taken them to many places, but it doesn’t take away the thoughts. The image he can’t tell anyone about.

The corpses.

Hardly the first he’s seen, but it had been significantly more horrific to see his…

To see his family dead.

Woz had never felt like he belonged until he met them. He simply existed, and even that had felt… unbelievable.

And so it hangs over him, and so he tells no one. Because it’s better to assume than to know, sometimes.

He’s not stupid, nor does he think Tsukuyomi is. She presumes the others are dead, but she doesn’t know.

Doesn’t know the marks on their bodies look like Oma Zi-O himself’s work.

(He can’t quite tell how he knew that, though. Just that he knew it was a Rider, and the only Rider left is Oma Zi-O, who had taken the powers of the heroic Kamen Riders long ago.)

  
  
  


Keito rushes him, and Woz sidesteps, matching his attacks for long moments. He isn’t the type for taunts in a fight, and neither is Keito. It goes back and forth until Woz gets bored and pins Keito to the ground.

“Someday, I am going to beat you,” the younger boy growls. Woz hmms.

“I wish you luck, Keito,” he says as he gets up. Keito frowns, going back to his older brother. Tsukuyomi glares at Woz the way she always does when he’s riling Keito up on purpose.

“Gates is a good fighter,” Shu says, in that effortlessly diffusing way of his. “I believe in him.”

“But you’re my brother!” Keito exclaims in reply.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

  
  
  


Of course it’s Keito himself who finds Woz at the edge of camp, panting, white, and trying to shake off the nightmare.

He’d always had quiet nightmares, and he’s glad of that, but he wishes his dreams could make any more sense than just a feeling of nonexistence and then the faces of Sam and Mai and Zala and Shiro, more warped than they’d been even when he found them.

“Hey, Woz,” Keito calls, which surprisingly does immediately help. “You left your book.”

“Ah,” Woz says. “I would like it back, if you would.”

Keito holds it close to his chest.

“I’ve never seen you without this, you know,” he says. He holds it up. The binding is simple and brown, but the pages are edged in faux gold. It’s been empty for as long as Woz can remember, though he feels it could have more to it.

“I assure you, I can part with it,” Woz says dryly. “However, I would still like it back.”

“Are you okay?”

Woz blinks.

“I’m sorry?”

Keito looks away.

“Nevermind,” he says, throwing the book at Woz, which he only barely catches. But there was something about the question, the honest concern in Keito’s eyes, that gives Woz pause.

“If you were to discover how your parents died,” he says. “Would you tell Shu?”

Keito pauses for a long moment, back to Woz.

“He already knows that they did,” he says. “I don’t see why I would.”

Woz can’t quite make himself antagonize the younger boy after that, even if he still knows how.

  
  
  


Sometimes Woz and Tsukuyomi still practice the skills of spies. It’s a mixture of nostalgia and practicality. Remembering the more innocent time in their lives crossed with bringing those skills into the now. Sometimes Shu or Keito help when they give each other cyphers, other times the commanding officers give them small assignments, as they have no direct access to a spy team.

Sometimes practice becomes a real assignment which brings something useful like a box of datapads or Oma’s army movements for across East Asia.

“…so.” Shu calls, from behind them. “Can we go now? I think I see someone headed  _ right  _ for us.”

“Almost done downloading,” Tsukuyomi responds. “And you know this wasn’t the plan.”

Shu merely smiles.

“I’m always ready to help,” he says.

“Regardless, You did not have to come,” Woz adds. “This isn’t your skill set.”

“Neither is making up camps.”

  
  
  


It’s around a year and a half after everyone died when Woz runs into a stranger in an even stranger outfit. He doesn’t know who he is, but somehow he feels familiar.

Similar.

“You’re… you’re a Quartzer,” the man says. Woz blinks.

“I’m sorry?”

The man looks him over, laughing.

“Nevermind,” he says. “I’ll get out of your hair, now.”

Woz is approximately sixteen, and he is less than impressed.

“I think you don’t belong in this camp,” he says. “I won’t be allowing you to leave this place without an explanation, you know.”

The man laughs, looking around.

“Some people don’t belong anywhere,” he says. “Do you belong here?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have nothing important to say to you,” the man says. “You don’t understand being lost in the discrepancies.”

“There are many people here who should not exist,” Woz says, and he doesn’t fully realize  _ what _ he said until the words leave his mouth. The man’s eyes narrow in obvious interest.

“So you do see it,” he says. “This is just an end result of  _ them. _ ”

“Of who?” Woz questions.

“Heisei Riders,” the man says. Just then, Woz hears Tsukuyomi calling his name, and he turns to find Tsukuyomi at the end of the alley.

When he turns back, the man is gone.

  
  
  


It’s not long after that that Woz becomes an actual fighter, alongside Shu, who had caved when Woz stepped up.

“I can’t leave Gates,” Shu explains. “I’ve been taking care of him since I was thirteen.”

“It will never become better for him until Oma Zi-O is destroyed,” Woz counters. “He will choose to fight himself, as soon as the opportunity is given.”

“Is that why you’re going to fight?” Shu asks, and Woz… doesn’t know.

“I was raised in this war,” he points out. “Yourself and Keito were…”

Shu sighs.

“Yeah,” he says. “Neo-Tokyo. I guess a part of me still thinks fighting Oma Zi-O is pointless. I just. Mom told me to take Keito and run, and so I did. And then we ended up here, but…”

Silence rigs for long moments, as Woz tries to figure out how to respond.

“Perhaps Oma Zi-O  _ is _ impossible to defeat,” He finally settles on. “However, a perfect world made functional by fear is not one in which I would want to live.”

Shu sighs.

“I guess you’re right,” he says. “Besides, I can’t leave you alone out there.”

  
  
  


“How’s fighting out there?” Tsukuyomi asks.

“Difficult,” Woz admits. “But it feels close to something correct. It is…”

He trails off.

“Don’t worry, I understand,” Tsukuyomi replies. “Keito wants to fight, too.”

Woz hmms.

“So do I,” Tsukuyomi continues, and now Woz lets his new information spill out.

“I have been offered a command,” he says. “I would like your aid, and Keito’s.”

Tsukuyomi blinks.

“Oh.”

“Indeed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @flaim-ita or @dancingqueen-mai for just Toku edits


End file.
